This is number in eleven in a series illustrating how Trump’s MAGA movement is the new American fascism. We use a template laid out in an article published in 2003 by historian Lawrence Britt, which analyzed seven fascist regimes and the common threads linking them. You can read last week’s blog here.
Week XI. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
If you want to see the future of higher education under a MAGA regime, take a look at Florida, where Ron DeSantis is well down the path of reconstructing higher education in the State. A prime target was Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programming - a lightning rod for the right. Florida enacted a state law that prohibits using any federal or state funds on DEI programming in public schools and universities. That law also bans any teachings that imply that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequity.”
The New College of Florida, a publicly funded liberal arts college, was a particular target for DeSantis’ ire. He characterized it as a hotbed of “woke indoctrination” before remaking it as a bastion of conservatism. The Board of Trustees was remade, faculty overhauled, DEI programs shut down, and some of the new administrators hired into top posts did not have a background in academia, but rather connections to Republican state politics.
Think that can’t happen here in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District? It already is. Read Fred Snowflack’s piece, “The Culture Wars come to College,” about Warren County Community College and the hiring of the Republican chair of neighboring Sussex County, Joseph Labarbera, to a new position at the college, “Dean of Accountability.” Labarbera has no background in education - but he was in the forefront of the Sussex County GOP’s legislative campaign, much of which involved allegations the public school system has become too left wing or “woke.” A campaign that produced the odious piece of campaign literature at the top of this blog.
Since the controversial appointment was announced, some of Labarbera’s social media posts came to light. Like this one.
What do you think that means for the future of Warren County Community College? Even in New Jersey, the aim of the right to turn institutes of higher learning into “bastions of conservatism” is self-evident.
We started this piece by headlining Trump’s desire to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. The first Trump budget, and each succeeding one, proposed eliminating funding for the arts agency, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public television and radio outlets around the country. Nevertheless, those efforts were rebuffed every year.
Trump’s attempted budget slashing was just one way he demonstrated his antipathy to the arts. He gave out National Medals of Arts only twice during his term. He also disbanded the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities after its members resigned to protest his defense of white nationalists after the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
But just as fascism developed an artistic voice in Nazi Germany (think about Leni Riefenstahl) or in the “Novecento Italiano” art movement in Italy, designed to promote Mussoilini, we are seeing a MAGA “voice” emerge. Look at Jon McNaughton, a Utah-based artist who depicts American politics from a conservative and Christian perspective. Here is his 2018 painting “Crossing the Swamp.”
And there is a growing list of black rap artists supporting Trump’s 2024 run. We have long known about Kanye "Ye" West’s admiration for Trump. But he has been joined by others - Lil Wayne, DaBaby, Kodak Black, Chief Keef, Benny the Butcher and Waka Flocka Flame are just a few. (Lil Wayne and Kodak Black were pardoned by Trump for separate firearms offenses.)
And, yes, there is MAGA Rap. And Trumpsters love it….
Don’t underestimate how Trump and his movement are using THEIR version of the arts to personify and invigorate an extreme right wing version of America. For a lengthy discussion, read Matthew Rosza’s article on “Trump the fascist artist,” in Salon.
Next week: Obsession with Crime and Punishment.
